Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today in response to a Department of Labor report that U.S. employers cut 49,000 jobs in May – the fifth month in a row of job losses for American workers and businesses:

“With energy prices breaking new records every week, food prices continuing to climb and more than a million American families in foreclosure, today’s news that employers cut 49,000 jobs last month – and 324,000 since this beginning of the year – is troubling. Even worse, the unemployment rate jumped from 5 percent to 5.5 percent – the highest monthly increase in more than two decades.

“Democrats are fighting to make the American Dream affordable again for middle-class families struggling with the rising cost of living and a shrinking job market. The Bush-McCain economy has now shed jobs every month of 2008; it is well past time for this Administration to work with us to extend unemployment insurance, and Bush-McCain Republicans must do more than offer the same failed economic strategy that got us into this mess in the first place.”